Packers TE Tucker Kraft's block on Vikings' Jones creates debate, but no serious injury

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft’s low block on Patrick Jones apparently didn’t lead to any serious injury for the Minnesota Vikings edge rusher.

However, it did produce plenty of debate between the two NFC North rivals.

Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday that he wasn’t ruling Jones out for Sunday’s game at Detroit that will determine the NFC North champion and No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. Jones left the Vikings' 27-25 victory over the Packers after the incident with Kraft in the second quarter.

“He’ll have a chance to even possibly make it this week,” O’Connell said. “We’ll see how he works through it.”

Vikings edge rusher Jonathan Greenard went on social media to criticize Kraft’s block, which didn’t result in a penalty. During his Monday news conference, Packers coach Matt LaFleur defended what Kraft did and called it a “totally legal play.”

The play occurred during the second quarter as Kraft was trying to create running room for Josh Jacobs on a 5-yard carry.

“Dude motioned from 30 yards away to STILL cut him,” Greenard wrote after the game on an X post. “Pathetic. Be a man block up high. NFL, get rid of this block PLEASE.”

LaFleur said Kraft’s move is allowed within the rules and noted that “it’s the same thing that their guys were doing to our defensive ends.”

“That’s a way to try to slow down just the speed off the edge,” LaFleur said. “It’s a great equalizer. That’s tough for the offense, to have to deal with that, so you’ve got to have some sort of recourse to try to slow somebody down.”

LaFleur suggested that if those types of low blocks get prohibited, then all hits below the knee should be outlawed. He pointed out how receivers often go across the middle and get hit low. He suggested having a strike zone on each player extending from below the neck to above the knee in that case.

“Our intent is not to go hurt somebody," LaFleur said. "You never want to see that. I don’t want to see that from either team. The intent is to slow somebody down, and I do think it’s part of our job as coaches, is to teach our, whether it’s an edge rusher or whoever, how to defeat a cut block. And conversely, you’ve got to teach them how to throw a good cut, you know? That’s part of our responsibility, and then the players have got to go out there and apply that.”